The Curmudgeonly Professor Inquires as to Why No one Knows or Tries to Make Anything that Works or Lasts Any More

The Curmudgeonly Professor has waxed eloquent heretofore on Blood's Law of Modern Technology, to wit:

1. Nothing ever works.
2. If it does work, it won't work very long.
3. If it quits working, no one can fix it.

We might add a few additional observations.  If, after a few months, you need to order parts for something, you discover these parts are no longer made.  A new model has just come out, making your six-month old model obsolete, obsolescent, not working, and disgustingly useless.

To illustrate, here are a few examples of worthless POC the Curmudgeonly Professor has dealt with lately.

• We replaced the heat pump on our air conditioner in St. George in about ten years.  Cost: $2,300.
• Our furnace and air conditioner in Salt Lake are about seven years old, and used only half-time.  We find now that both the furnace and air conditioner may have to be replaced, costing around $8-$10,000.  The warranties, of course, are miniscule and long since expired.  No one is willing to stand behind their products any more.  The contractor installed units were clearly marginal.
• I went to Staples today to get a red ink cartridge for my Canon i9900 photo printer.  Sorry, Canon no longer sells that cartridge through retailers.  Just a few years ago, the Canon i9900 was the top-rated consumer large format photo printer on the market.  I was told there were less than 100 of them running in the country today.
• Our dishwasher quit working after about three years.
• Two years ago, I ordered three successive Dell computers, none of which worked, and ended up buying a Mac.
• My Mac computer glitched 2,300 photos, and 5,000 photos were wiped out in some mysterious way.  Moreover, the memory cannot be increased.

Sadly, quality control has gone down the drain.  The reason American car makers are in deep trouble is because people don't want to buy the cars they make in large enough numbers to remain profitable.  My seven year old Toyota Avalon has required replacing one directional signal blinker light in all the time we have had it.  The last Maytag washer we had lasted 27 years.  The last fridge we had lasted 22 years.  The furnance we had in our last house lasted 20 years and was still going strong.

Now the strategy, apparently, is planned obsolescence.  Make it the cheapest way possible from the cheapest possible materials and the minimal quality parts.  Make the parts and replacement components obsolete in a few months so that nothing can be repaired.  The age of modern technology is, indeed, a marvelous age.  But it is also an age that borders on fraud and incompetence in producing and monitoring the quality and durability of the goods we buy.  If we had more confidence in the appliances and goods and services that we buy, we may be more willing to help strengthen the economy by buying more goods.  As it is, I am waiting for my nearly-new appliances to breathe their last gasp, run their last washer load cycle, freeze their last batch of ice cubes, and vacuum their last lint ball from the floor.  And I am mortally afraid of buying anything new.  How will I know how long it will work?  Even though, at my age, I am clearly out of the 20-30 year cycle, it would be nice if I didn't have to haul it to the dump or dispose of it in some other way two or three years down the road.  We have become accustomed to electronic goods such as computers, printers, software, digital cameras, and the like, becoming true throwaways--use it until it breaks or collapses or until the next innovative product hits the market and then toss it in the electronic junk pile.

The Curmudgeonly Professor just wishes people would pay more attention to durability and quality and repairability of consumer goods so we didn't have to feel continually like we have been suckers taken for a ride.